Google Plans a Same-Day Delivery Service

Coming as quite an unexpected move but something which will surely arouse the interest of buyers, Google is now rumored to be working on an amazing delivery service, one which should bring the product at the customer’s home in the following day or, even a few hours after purchase. To be able to do that, Google is said to be using its fleet of vehicles currently involved in mapping services that wander the globe at each second and, in the near future, possibly boost the service with self-driving cars.

I know, it sounds pretty Sci-Fi, but the future may be closer than expected. If the rumor has even a pinch of truth and Google could manage to pull such a stunt, Amazon, eBay and other Internet malls will be left in the dark by Google’s mighty cars. The only thing standing between this idea and its concretization is an effort to break the competition, because vendors will surely want to offer such services. Add a wonderful price to that and bye bye Amazon Prime.

Why Google’s same-day delivery makes sense

First of all, Google is a master at taking opportunities and in this case, when the occasion exists and the search engine based company has the means of monetizing it, we can safely assume that Google officials are actually looking into the matter; or at least they should be.

When you think of it, Google has everything it needs to make this happen. To make a service such as Google Maps to work, the company is involved with numerous contractors that drive through the most ambiguous streets of all countries while mapping every detail and taking pictures of routes. Imagine if Google would use these cars to deliver packages, while the drivers do their usual charting choirs.

Retailers would have the possibility to contact Google and ask them to pick up packages and drop them on the way, with very short delivering times, all depending on the location, of course. I highly doubt that even Google can master deliveries at such a level that products would arrive in the same day all over the country, but let’s picture that buyers would receive what they order the day after. That’s still nice.

Google delivery service needs to beat Amazon Prime

When taking a look outside the fence, Amazon’s Prime service is selling like hot pancakes at $79 per year, and besides offering instant streaming of movies, TV shows and instant access to eBooks, the main point of attraction is the two-day delivery service without any additional fees or minimum order sizes. Moreover, the Local Express Delivery service hosted by Amazon can also deliver packages in the same day for $8.99, but the list of supported cities is very short and time intervals for late orders also apply:

Until 7 a.m.: Chicago, Indianapolis

Until 8:30 a.m.: New York City and some parts of New Jersey

Until 9:30 a.m.: Phoenix

Until 10:00 a.m.: Las Vegas, Philadelphia

Until 11:00 a.m.: Baltimore, Boston, Washington, D.C

Until 12:00 a.m.: Seattle

Imagine how buyers and vendors themselves would react to delivery assured in a couple of hours, for an affordable price and to far larger portions of the country.

The Ace in Google’s sleeve

Moreover, Google would hold quite an advantage overseas, because Google Maps is a global service and although contractors differ, the same task is done, by the same company and with the same results. Of course, deliveries in other countries should take a bit longer and may slash a couple or more bucks of the wallet, but it will still hold and advantage against Amazon and eBay, where packages arrive in two weeks.

Another idea which would supposedly arrive in the States first would be the use of self-driving cars, to erase the costs of the driver. Google is currently working on a driverless car project which is directly overseen by Sebastian Thrun, the co-inventor of Google Street View. At the moment, there’s even a modified Toyota Prius that has a driver’s license since March and can function without a human behind the wheel. The automobile alongside a whole fleet of these kinds of inventions has completed over 300,000 miles without an accident, on usual roads.

Pair that with the use of the Google Wallet and you’ve got yourself a self-running environment. I wonder where would people fit in in such a world…

Alex Serban Feature Writer Alex holds an engineering degree in Telecommunications and has been covering technology as a writer since 2009. Customization is his middle name and he doesn’t like to own stock model gadgets. When he’s away from the keyboard, simpler things like hiking, mountain climbing and having a cold drink make his day.